Impact of Chitosan on CS/TiO2 Composite System for Enhancing Its Photocatalytic Performance Towards Dye Degradation

Chitosan, supported by titanium dioxide nanocomposite (CS/TiO2) is synthesized using the in-situ sol-gel method. The synthesis was carried out at room temperature to obtain CS/TiO2 containing TiO2 in the anatase phase. The prepared samples were characterized by using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, photoluminescence (PL), and infrared techniques. The modification aims to assess the impact of CS concentration on the structural and photodeg-radation properties of the resultant composite. The synthesized composite samples are used to evaluate the adsorption photodegradation of Methyl orange as a model pollutant. The compos-ite sample with lower CS concentration (CT1) shows the highest adsorption-photodegrada-tion efficiency which gradually declined by increasing CS content. The high efficiency of CT1 is attributed to its high crystallinity, lower crystallite size, and better e- - h+ separation as detailed in XRD and PL results. It is undeniable that CS improves the adsorption properties of TiO2 however its optimum concentration is achieved in CT1.